Currently, men aged 18 to 26 are required to register through the Selective Service System online or at the DMV. But at the end of 2026 that changes as part of a measure tucked into the annual defense policy bill Congress passed and President Trump signed into law last year.

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pennsylvania) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) introduced the change in 224, saying it "saves taxpayers significant money and makes it easier for these men to follow the law and register with the Selective Service." But not every lawmaker is convinced the National Defense Authorization Act is best for the country.

U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, who serves the first district of Illinois, sat down with CBS News Chicago to talk about his opposition to the move, what changes it actually makes, rumors about reinstating the draft amid the war with Iran and Congress's role, or lack thereof, in the war so far. 

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May Day, also called International Workers Day in the U.S., is a celebration of laborers and labor organizing that is observed on May 1 every year.  It dates back to the campaign to establish an eight-hour work day by May 1, 1886.

Every year, hundreds if not thousands of Chicagoans participate in May Day protests. This year, May 1 falls on a Friday at a time when school  is supposed to be in session.

The CTU has been talking about taking a civic day of action on May 1 for months, but they still don't have a firm answer on whether it will be granted. The union argues they and the students should get a day off to learn an important lesson outside the classroom.

"The likelihood that, you know, we need to take to protect, defend our democracy, to get ICE out of our cities, to tax the billionaires, to defend the needs of our people has increased day after day," said CTU Vice President Jackson Potter.

New CPS CEO Macquiline King said the school board will have to decide if there's class on May 1. She believes students and teachers should report to school, telling parents in a letter, "I understand and empathize with our families' frustration and confusion around this issue." 

Chicago police confirmed seven parked vehicles were damaged in the first block of West 59th Street just before 6 a.m.

Video from the scene shows the damaged personal vehicles parked in a lot outside the station. 

Police said it is not clear if anything was taken from inside the vehicles. 

No injuries were reported. Area One detectives are investigating. 

Fire officials said they were called to the industrial business in the 6400 block of South Archer Road shortly after 8:30 a.m. When they arrived they found a structure fire.

As some firefighters doused the flames, others began searching the building. Inside they found two employees with burn injuries. They were taken by ambulance to nearby hospitals for treatment. Their conditions were not immediately known.

The fire was brought under control at about 9 a.m. One firefighter was hurt, with minor burn injuries, and was also taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, the fire department said. 

Archdiocese officials said in a statement that Friday is suddenly the last day more than 800 students with disabilities will receive federally funded instructional support at their schools. The support includes tutoring and other special needs academic support services.

The archdiocese is claiming these programs were only pulled from Catholic schools, saying they are "not aware of any other non-public school system or individual school, religious or secular, whose IDEA services are being terminated." IDEA refers to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which provides the federal funding for the services.

Cardinal Blase Cupich blasted the city's school district, writing in the statement, "We cannot allow this shocking and unjust action by CPS to stand, not only given its affront to Catholics, but even more so since that injustice disenfranchises the students we serve."

Church leaders are even questioning if the public school district mismanaged Monday. They said they have been in contact with new CPS CEO Dr. Macquline King, but their "written ant telephone efforts have not yielded a response."

CBS News Chicago has been in contact with the CPS media team since Wednesday to explain what happened with the Catholic schools' special ed funding, and still have not received a response. 

According to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Jasmine Larkin, 38, and Eddie Boykin, 45, were arrested in the 1100 block of West Winona Street and charged with felony counts of burglary. 

USPS said Larkin and Boykin were identified as the suspects who forced open the service doors of an apartment complex and stole mail and packages. 

Officials said they had tools used to open the boxes and multiple bags containing stolen mail.

Officials said additional charges are possible amid the ongoing investigation. 

Lynette Hooker, who is from Michigan, has been missing since Sunday. Bahamian officials arrested her husband Wednesday night and are holding him for questioning in connection with her case, but he has not been charged with a crime, according to his attorney, Terrel Butler. Hooker can be held for 48 hours until he has to be either charged or released, Butler said, noting that officials can extend the period to 96 hours if deemed necessary.

Brian Hooker denies any wrongdoing. He previously told authorities that his wife fell from their dinghy Saturday night while the couple sailed from Hope Town to Elbow Cay in the Bahamas. He said powerful currents swept her away, along with the keys to their boat, which cut power to its engine and prevented him from reaching her. 

He shared a similar account of what happened in Facebook messages to Daniel Danforth, a friend of the Hookers since 2023. Danforth told CBS News he met them because of their shared interest in boating.

The messages show that Danforth reached out to Brian on Monday after seeing news coverage of his wife's disappearance.

"The wind blew me away from her and she swam towards the sailboat and we lost sight of each other pretty quickly as it was just about sundown," Brian wrote in reply. "I drifted and tried to paddle with one oar for the next 7 hours until I washed up behind the shore of the next Island over and was able to get some help finally."

Bahamian police have said Brian Hooker arrived at the Marsh Harbor Boat Yard on the island of Abaco at 4 a.m. Sunday morning, after paddling the dinghy to shore. They said he told someone his wife was missing once he made it there, and that person informed authorities.

In the messages, he told Danforth his family was "in hell" as search crews failed to locate his wife. 

When Danforth checked in again the next morning, Hooker said he had moved his boat to Marsh Harbor and had been sleeping there, but planned to relocate "for a night or two" to stay with his sister and brother-in-law, who were flying in to meet him. He told Danforth that he planned "on heading back out to the site" after that "and continuing search."

"I will most likely definitely need help in the future but I just don't know what it is yet I'm trying to take it a day at a time and keep the faith," he told Danforth, before congratulating him on his recent sailboat purchase.

"The stories don't really match up"

Danforth told CBS News that he first met the Hookers three years ago, while sailing in the New Orleans area. A Facebook notification from Brian over the weekend initially reminded him of the couple, before he started seeing headlines about Lynette's disappearance, Danforth said. 

He received the notification because Brian had liked his comment on a post that Danforth's wife had shared about boating. In retrospect, Danforth said the fact that his friend was scrolling social media and liking posts at that time raised some questions for him.

"You know, my wife's missing, Facebook's the last thing I'm worried about. You're going to find me on the water riding around," Danforth told CBS News.

Danforth said he was concerned that Brian moved his boat from Elbow Cay, where it was anchored, shortly after Lynette went missing. He also noted that, in comparing Brian's s retelling of Lynette's disappearance with emerging media reports, "the stories don't really match up."

While police have said Hooker recalled his wife being swept overboard and out to sea, Danforth said his messages reflected "she was casually swimming back toward the sailboat." 

He also said the Hookers "always had their phones with them" and frequently posted videos online, so he wondered why Brian's "phone didn't work or why they didn't have their phones in the boat" the night Lynette went missing.

Danforth said his wife was friends with Lynette and he didn't have concerns about the couple's relationship, although there had been a period where Brian and Lynette "had separated for a while," he said. 

"You know, most of the time people do get back together and you don't want things to be awkward," he said. "So we didn't — I don't really get into a whole lot of personal business because of those reasons." 

Lynette Hooker's daughter, Karli Aylesworth, told CBS News in a separate interview that her mother and Brian Hooker had broken up and gotten back together in recent years. Aylesworth said she is seeking answers about the circumstances surrounding her mother's disappearance and has said she doubts the sequence of events described by Brian Hooker.

"For one, I don't understand how she got the key," Aylesworth said. "Brian's always driving. So he basically is in charge of the key. So the fact that my mom had it doesn't make any sense."

In an earlier statement, Butler, Hooker's attorney, said he denied the allegations made by Aylesworth, and added, "He has been cooperating with the relevant authorities as part of an ongoing investigation."

Butler has spoken to Hooker on the phone and told CBS News that he was focused on continuing the search for his wife.

"That's all he's been talking about," Butler said. "Yesterday… he made arrangements to go back out and search for her."

The whereabouts of the boat key was also an issue for Danforth, who said pictures and videos the Hookers took while on the dinghy never show either of them with the key, which is usually attached to a lanyard. But he said it's possible that Lynette Hooker would "reach out in desperation" to grab hold of something as she fell overboard, and "that's the closest thing."

Ultimately, Danforth said he didn't fully believe strong winds and ocean currents could separate Hooker's small dinghy from his wife so rapidly. And, if she were swimming toward the dinghy, as Brian Hooker said in his messages, Danforth asked: "Why didn't he try to go get her?"

Brian Hooker told his attorney he fell into the water during his arrest

In their first in-person meeting late Thursday, Brian Hooker told his attorney he almost drowned after falling in the water as police were taking him into custody. 

"He [Brian Hooker] had a really traumatic experience being transported here to Grand Bahama," Butler told CBS News on Thursday. "He was taken to his vessel for a search, and when he went there, he was handcuffed and was told he could have a change of clothes and he was requested to disembark while handcuffed."

According to Butler, that's when his client went overboard. 

"When he fell overboard, he had to be rescued by officers," Butler said.

In a new statement released Friday morning, Butler said he had visited with Hooker at the Central Police Station in Grand Bahama and was requesting immediate medical attention for him. He said the fall had taken place in "choppy and dangerous sea conditions" as Hooker lost his footing on the wet boat flooring while handcuffed. 

A CBS News team saw Hooker being taken to a local hospital to get checked out.

Butler's statement also said, "Brian appears completely heartbroken and deeply distressed. His primary concern and source of intense frustration is his inability to continue the search for his wife of 25 years. The trauma of her disappearance, coupled with his current detention as a suspect, has left him in an extremely fragile state."

Bambaataa's sudden death was met with an outpouring of condolences from friends, family and fans across the world, who paid tribute to his profound and unmistakable impact on one of the world's most popular and politically influential music genres. But others have said that his impact was overshadowed in recent years after numerous men who knew Bambaataa when they were boys accused him of sexual abuse.

The rapper and producer is best known for breakthrough tracks like 1982's "Planet Rock" and for founding the Universal Zulu Nation art collective.

"Hip Hop will never be the same without him — but everything hip hop is today, it is because of him. His spirit lives in every beat, every cypher and every corner of this globe he touched," his talent agency, Naf Management Entertainment, wrote in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

Bambaataa was born Lance Taylor in 1957 in the South Bronx, and he came of age at a time when the New York City neighborhood was rapidly deteriorating after intensifying segregation and years of economic neglect. By the 1970s and 1980s, landlords were burning apartment buildings to collect insurance money instead of investing in repairs, leaving low-income, mostly Puerto Rican and Black families without socioeconomic opportunity.

Bambaataa had Jamaican and Barbadian heritage, and he was raised in a low-income public housing complex by his mother, according to an interview he gave Frank Broughton in 1998. He was exposed to music at an early age through his mother's vinyl record collection.

The ability to repurpose and mix old hits became one of his signatures at the parties he began to throw in community centers across the neighborhood in the early 1970s, Bambaataa said in the interview. He was deeply inspired by the work of Kool Herc, who is often deemed the father of hip-hop.

Bambaataa and the parties where he DJ'ed swelled in popularity throughout the decade and well into the 1980s, when he released a series of electro tracks that helped shape the burgeoning hip-hop and electro-funk music movements. He was also one of the first DJs to use beat breaks, incorporating the iconic Roland TR-808 drum machine.

"We was playin' everything, everything that was funky," he said. He later added that what set his parties apart was that "other DJs would play they great records for fifteen, twenty minutes. We was changing ours every minute or two. I couldn't have no breakbeat go longer than a minute or two."

At that time, Bambaataa said in previous interviews that he was able to leverage his affiliation with the local street gang the Black Spades to form a group he called the Zulu Nation, a nod to a South African ethnic group that he drew inspiration from. His slogan eventually became known as "peace, love, unity and having fun," and he said that he sought to use hip-hop's ballooning popularity to resolve local gang conflicts.

Later, Bambaataa changed the name to the Universal Zulu Nation to signal the inclusion of "all people from the planet earth."

"At the core our music made people feel like they belong to a movement and not a moment, our music offered Hope something positive to believe in, it gave people identity, unity, and a way out," Ellis Williams, a producer known as Mr. Biggs, wrote in an email to the AP. Mr. Biggs was a member of the group Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force that included Bambaataa.

In recent years, numerous people have accused Bambaataa of sexual abuse.

In 2016, Bronx political activist and former music industry executive Ronald Savage accused Bambaataa of abusing him in 1980, when he was Savage was a young teen.

"I was scared, but at the same time I was like, 'This is Afrika Bambaataa,'" Savage told the AP in 2016. At the time he recalled, in detail, that encounter and four others that he said followed.

Bambaataa has vehemently denied those allegations.

After Savage went public with his claims, numerous other men came forward to share similar experiences about Bambaataa. In June 2016, the Universal Zulu Nation released a public letter apologizing to "the survivors of apparent sexual molestation by Bambaataa," saying that some members of the group knew about the abuse but "chose not to disclose" it.

"We extend our deepest and most sincere apologies to the many people who have been hurt," the organization wrote.

On March 22, police said 15-year-old Violet Harris was hit and killed by a Ford Fusion while riding an e-scooter in the 2800 block of East 77th Street. Her friend, on a separate scooter, was injured. 

 Harris was a Hyde Park High School freshman.  

Police are now searching for the driver of the dark-colored Ford Fusion.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Major Accident Investigation Unit at 312-745-4521 or submit an anonymous tip at CPDTIP.com.

Police said the shooting happened at the Larkin Village Apartments near Vernon Avenue and Lois Place.

All three victims were taken to Saint Joseph Medical Center, but their conditions were not available.

Investigators said it was an "active investigation" on Thursday night.      

CBS News Chicago reached out to police for more information on Friday morning. We are waiting for a response.                                                              

Friday will be cooler with highs in the lower 50s and breezy northwesterly winds.  

Here is your 7-day forecast:

Friday: Rain ends early. High: 53, Low: 34

Saturday: Cooler lakeside. High: 61, Low: 55

Sunday: Few storms and windy. High: 77, Low: 62

Monday: Few storms, windy. High: 81, Low: 66

Tuesday: Severe storm risk. High: 82, Low: 62

Wednesday: Severe storm risk. High: 75, Low: 51

Thursday: Windy. High: 70, Low: 46

Get more First Alert Weather from CBS News Chicago

CBS Chicago Radar | Regional Radar | Regional Satellite and Radar | West Suburbs Weather Radar | Central Suburbs Weather Radar | South Suburbs Weather Radar | Northwest Indiana Weather Radar | North Suburbs Weather Radar 

Within seconds, temperatures across its 16.5-foot-wide heat shield will climb to some 5,000 degrees — half as hot as the visible surface of the sun — as the ship rapidly slows in an electrically charged fireball of atmospheric friction. 

The four astronauts on board — commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — are counting on the heat shield to keep them safe, in a comfortable environment, all the way through the peak heating zone to a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific off the coast of California. Splashdown is expected at 8:07 p.m. ET.

"We have high confidence in the system, in the heat shield and the parachutes and the recovery systems we put together," Amit Kshatriya, NASA's associate administrator, said Thursday. "The engineering supports it, the Artemis I flight data supports it. All of our ground tests support it, our analysis supports it, and tomorrow the crew is going to put their lives behind that confidence."

The crew and mission managers are confident, they say, despite major problems with the heat shield that was used during the unpiloted Artemis I test flight in 2022, when the Avcoat material making up the shield developed sub-surface cracks and gas pockets that blew away chunks of the protective barrier's outer "char" layer. 

Based on nearly two years of tests and analysis, engineers were surprised to discover the damage was most likely caused by the Avcoat material's lack of permeability during a specific phase of the reentry when the shield was experiencing lower external temperatures while internal layers were still extremely high, generating gas that could not escape.

Agency managers decided to order a different heat shield design for downstream Artemis missions. But the heat shield for the Artemis II flight, identical to the one used with Artemis I, was already installed. Replacing it with a new design would have delayed the mission by 18 months or more. 

Instead, NASA managers opted to launch Artemis II "as is" based on test data and an exhaustive analysis that indicated the shield would work properly if the reentry trajectory was modified to eliminate the temperature and pressure swings that contributed to the damage seen after the Artemis I flight. 

"They did a tremendous amount of research, a lot of groundbreaking research in some facilities that we had not used before, and they discovered the root cause," Wiseman said.

"They did wind tunnel testing and laser testing and hyper-velocity testing, and they determined that if we come in with this lofted profile ... that this heat shield will be safe for us to go fly.

"So I think all that points in the direction of goodness," he said. "And I think if you, as a human being who was about to board this rocket, had sat in the meetings that we sat in and listened to the experts and gone through the data with them, you would have the same comfort."

What went wrong with Artemis I?

During the Artemis I mission, the unpiloted capsule followed a planned "skip" trajectory, similar in concept to skipping a flat stone across still water. After an initial dip into the upper atmosphere, the Artemis I capsule skipped back out again before making its final descent to splashdown. The skip reentry helps reduce the spacecraft's velocity while offering NASA a wider range of splashdown options in case bad weather makes a targeted landing site problematic.

Despite the heat shield damage seen after the flight, the Artemis I reentry was successful. The capsule landed on target, and officials said that had any astronauts been aboard, they would have had no problems. But the damage triggered alarm at NASA. 

"NASA identified more than 100 locations where ablative thermal protective material from Orion's heat shield wore away differently than expected during reentry into Earth's atmosphere," NASA's Office of Inspector General wrote. 

"While the heat shield successfully protected the Crew Module and its systems during the Artemis I mission, upon inspection after Orion's recovery, engineers noted unexpected variations in the appearance of the heat shield Avcoat — the ablative material that helps protect the capsule from the heat of reentry.

"Specifically, portions of the char layer wore away differently than NASA engineers predicted, cracking and breaking off the spacecraft in fragments that created a trail of debris rather than melting away as designed," the office said. "The unexpected behavior of the Avcoat creates a risk that the heat shield may not sufficiently protect the capsule's systems and crew from the extreme heat of reentry on future missions." 

Testing revealed the damage was related to the heat shield's permeability, or rather, its lack thereof. After the initial, relatively deep dive into the atmosphere, the Avcoat material making up the shield was unable to properly dissipate the heat that remained in its lower layers during the skip back out of the atmosphere. 

Entry heating is what makes the Avcoat's outer char layer permeable enough to allow gas to escape. The Artemis I heat shield worked normally during its initial descent into the atmosphere. But when it climbed back out, reentry heating eased and the outer char layer became much less permeable. 

The underlying material was still extremely hot, undergoing a process known as pyrolysis — combustion without oxygen — and generating gas that had no way to escape. Those buildups eventually blew chunks of the heat shield's outer layers away.

"They go back up from that first entry, they're still hot, they're still off-gassing," said an engineer familiar with the investigation. "The fact that the material itself isn't permeable enough is causing that gas pressure to build up now, very rapidly, because they're still hot. But the char layer has paused."

The outer char layer is "the only part of the Artemis I and Artemis II heat shield that actually allows it to breathe, or allows it to off-gas. So once it stops, now there's no mechanism in the deeper parts of the heat shield for that gas to escape," he said.

"So the pressure built up, and as the capsule came back down and started reheating, the pressure was already there.

"All those cracks, the pockets had already formed. And now, bang, bang, bang, pop. Avcoat started sloughing off during that second entry," the engineer said. 

A modified reentry trajectory should solve the problem

Engineers verified in lab tests that a modified skip-entry trajectory — one with an initial dip into the upper atmosphere followed by a shorter-duration climb back out — would allow the Avcoat to "breathe" throughout, preventing the formation of cracks and trapped gas. An independent review team agreed with those conclusions.

Interestingly, Apollo engineers were aware of the Avcoat permeability issue and designed that program's heat shields accordingly. Apollo capsules also used skip reentry trajectories and had no problems. But the Avcoat used in the Artemis heat shields was reformulated slightly, and that ended up affecting its permeability. 

In any case, the downside to the modified reentry trajectory for Artemis II will reduce the distance the Orion capsule can fly to avoid bad weather in the planned splashdown zone. It will also result in higher sustained heating during the descent, but engineers say that is exactly what is needed to maintain permeability in the outer char layer and ensure good performance. 

Former astronaut Charles Camarda disagreed, strongly criticizing the "fly as is" decision. He argues that engineers do not fully understand the root cause of the Artemis I heat shield damage and cannot accurately predict how the Artemis II heat shield will perform or whether the revised entry trajectory might have unintended consequences. 

In a letter to the NASA administrator, Camarda wrote that "history shows accidents occur when organizations convince themselves they understand problems they do not." 

Like Wiseman, Glover says he trusts the analysis of the Artemis I problem, saying critics "haven't been in these meetings from day one and met the team and looked them in the eye and shook their hands at the ends of these meetings."

That said, he added, "I don't want to discount the things that they've said. Any time you talk about fire, any time you talk about entry and heat shields, talk about parachutes, these are high-risk things that ... don't have fault tolerance built in. They have to work."

"And so I appreciate all of that nudging and poking and prodding that they've caused," Glover said. "They have made us sharpen our pencils and put more due diligence, more vigilance into that process. But I think we've done that. And so I think the crew is comfortable because of that team."

Police said, around 3:20 p.m., police and firefighters responded to reports of a person in the water in a pond in the 700 block of Innovation Drive.

A fully clothed man was found dead in the water, and was later identified as 26-year-old Alexis Ramirez, who had gone missing on March 10, after crashing his car near Higgins Road and Brennan Boulevard, just feet away from the pond.

Investigators believe Ramirez fled the scene of the crash, and police had conducted at least two extensive searches of the area, including the pond, using a police K-9, a drone, and sonar equipment, but did not find Ramirez's body until Thursday.

Police said there was no evidence of foul play.

A death investigation was underway Thursday afternoon, and police were awaiting the results of an autopsy by the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.

Taylor Hall added a goal and an assist as Carolina improved to 9-3-0 in its last 12 games. Mark Jankowski scored twice and Sean Walker and K'Andre Miller also added goals in the opener of a four-game trip, and Frederik Andersen made 23 saves.

Playing without several regulars in their first game since clinching the Metropolitan Division title, the Hurricanes (51-22-6) stayed two points ahead of Buffalo for the top spot in the Eastern Conference. The Sabres cruised to a 5-0 victory over Columbus.

Anton Frondell had two goals for Chicago in his ninth career game. Spencer Knight stopped 15 shots.

The last-place Blackhawks (28-37-14) lost for the seventh time in eight games.

Stankoven snapped a 1-1 tie when he flicked a shot past Knight on a drive to the net with 2:50 left in the first period. He also cleaned up a rebound for his 21st goal 4:08 into the second.

Jankowski got a piece of Alexander Nikishin's shot with 5:10 left in the second, giving Carolina a 4-1 lead. He also scored his 10th goal on a one-timer 12:51 into the third.

There were scattered boos at a mostly empty United Center as the final seconds ticked off.

Frondell, who turns 19 on May 7, scored his third career goal on a slick redirection 6:09 into the third. The No. 3 overall pick in last year's draft has been a bright spot for the lowly Blackhawks since making his NHL debut on March 24.

Both teams play again on Saturday. Carolina is at Utah, and Chicago hosts St. Louis.

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

The next morning, Kyra Puetz went outside and found the damage.

She first saw big dents on the driver's side of her car.

"I'm not able to roll this window down anymore. The dent is so big, it won't roll back up," she said.

She also found scratches from the edge of the roof down to the driver's side doors that she said she can't get off.

She had no idea what had happened overnight. 

"I thought it was a hit and run," she said.

Then, she found the rusty remains of the light pole on the sidewalk.

"It fell over, hit the top of my car and bounced into the street," said Puetz. "And I believe the city must have cleaned it up overnight."

Later, she found her neighbor's Ring videos, showing the incident. She was relieved, thinking the city would pay for the damage since it was a city light pole.

"It's in the bag," she recalled thinking. "They're gonna pay me for the damages."

She filed a claim for the nearly $3,000 it would take to fix her car, submitted photos, and told someone she even had the videos. But by early February, she got a denial letter in the mail. It noted, "Our Principal regrets that it must decline any claim resulting from this incident."

She said she called the Law Department for more information on the denial and was told if someone had called to report the rusty pole before it had snapped, the city would have paid her claim.

"I see their reasoning with relying on the citizens, but at the end of the day, the pole fell, so I feel as if they should take accountability and pay for it," said Puetz.

The Chicago Department of Transportation confirmed that "Residents can report damaged or deteriorating poles through 311 by submitting a 'Street Light Pole Damage Complaint,' which helps inform ongoing maintenance and replacement priorities."   

CBS News Chicago Investigators, through a public records request, discovered how many claims for damage related to falling light poles the city receives and pays.

Between January 2021 and February 2026, 64 claims were filed asking for at least $1.2 million in reimbursement for damages. Six claims remained open at the time of the request. The city paid $9,290 for two approved claims. The rest were closed without payment.

"It's kind of crazy the city isn't taking responsibility for it," said Puetz.

CDOT said the light pole that fell on Puetz's car dates back to the 1980s. In a statement, the agency said, "It was last inspected in 2017, at which time, inspectors noted no observed structural issues and a routine amount of rust."

"This should have been somehow inspected more frequently," said Illinois Institute of Technology Engineering professor Gongkang Fu. "If you own the structure, you need to maintain it. You need to make sure that it's safe, not the public that uses it."

Fu used to work for the Illinois Department of Transportation and said some national studies have suggested inspections about every four years.

Chicago has more than 334,000 light poles citywide. In 2024, CDOT replaced 890 poles and installed new lighting on 312 blocks. In 2025, CDOT replaced 204 poles and installed new lighting on 201 blocks. As of March 20, 2026, CDOT has replaced 176 poles and installed new lighting on 26 blocks.

"Year-to-year totals can vary based on a number of factors, including contractor capacity and other streetlighting projects," CDOT said.

CDOT said it replaced the light pole on Puetz's block the next day with a "serviceable asset from our existing inventory." The rust-colored discoloration seen on the new pole is "surface oxidation" and "does not necessarily impact the structural integrity of the pole," they said.

The last citywide assessment of light poles was conducted in 2017-2018. CDOT told us it is considering options for an "updated systemwide assessment," but said it is a "significant undertaking."